Archive for the ‘News’ Category

Although I am on a maternity inner journey for this beautiful year, I have agreed to step out for a special event in the name of Women and Music. Women’s Music Summit is a unique music camp experience nestled in the magical Catskill mountains in upstate NY – it’s quite a deluxe and extravagant WEEK long event. The full package includes accommodations, food, the natural beauty all around AND the musical workshops with the guest women musicians (such as me, kaki king and meshell ndegeocello among many others!). This is certainly a one of a kind experience for any music loving woman out there, i look forward to sharing it with any of you who can make it.

The exceptional Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, has once again invited MAdM to participate in one of their innovating art exhibits. As you may remember OUT OF OUR MINDS (OOOM) Film was programmed along side Pre-Raphealite master painter JW Waterhouse retrospective just over a year ago. This time, MAdM is honored to be part of BIG BANG! a groundbreaking show of contemporary Montreal Artists, all of whom were invited to roam freely the archives of the landmark museum. Here were the ground rules they gave us….

BIG BANG!“As part of this fall’s celebrations, the Museum wished to pay tribute to contemporary creativity by organizing a multidisciplinary exhibition, an innovative and unifying event, free of charge and accessible to everyone. Some twenty renowned artists from several disciplines have been given carte blanche to create an installation, the only condition being that it be based on a work of their choice from the Museum’s collection, to renew and reinvent it. Art inspires artists for all time: “With this original project, the Museum’s collection becomes an open work, justifying the essential mission of this institution: to conserve the works of yesterday that inspire the artists of today,” states Nathalie Bondil, Museum Director.”

so off I went… through the vaults. first looking for swiss art, as i continue my hunt of my heritage and blood lineage. i discovered Hodler and his romantic portrait of an ancient Swiss National Guard aka Hallebardier (yes the ones that guard the pope and Vatican til this very day and the most sought after and deadly fighters of the middle ages). this brought me back to my reoccurring hunt and theme of my weapon of choice….. my photographic project began. i went deeper into their collection of weapons, and found a diverse collection, such as this ceremonial dagger from the congo below….

as during my photographic studies in university, i turned the camera on myself, at which time i was 6 months pregnant. sneak peek below, but to see the whole image and whole piece, you must be in Montreal between now and january 22 ….

WEAPON OF CHOICE“Inviting Ferdinand Hodler’s 10-foot tall “Hallebardier” painting as the central muse for my piece initiated my exploration of the hunt for one’s own Weapon of Choice. L’homme d’armes depicted in this portrait, circa 1895, reflects aspects of my favorite painting traditions happening around that time in Europe. There are echoes of the mysticism of the Pre-Raphaelites that came just before, and the fantasy and nature worship of the blossoming Art Nouveau movement, but here the subject is a Man and his weapon. My Swiss ancestral roots only add to my need to explore the history of Swiss Mercenaries…. Whose battle would you fight?”
xMAdMx

so happy to be invited to play the following summer festivals. all very different and special in their own right.

Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland – July 4th :
Established in 1967 by legendary founder and director to this day Claude Nobs (not to mention old friends of Aretha Franklin, Miles Davis and Frank Zappa). Held in one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, with an impeccable artist friendly reputation, this festival invited me back again this year, after the HEART BREAKING EMERGENCY LIGHT FLIGHT CANCELLATION NIGHTMARE MERCI, see you next week!!

Festival d’Ete de Quebec – July 13 :
Quebec’s BIGGEST 10 day long festival hosting Metallica to Elton John has invited me to participate for the first time. It’s a pleasure to share the stage with fellow fantasy freaks and European label mates, Coheed and Cambria. As a native Montrealer and Quebecoise, it took me until last year to play Quebec City for the FIRST TIME! Hole, The Pumpkins, my first solo tour never made it up there, so was i ever blown away by the support and enthusiasm when i arrived there for the first time last fall. MERCI Quebec, je me souvien et va etre de retour bientot!

HEAVY T.O!!!!!!!! – July 24:
Where to i begin????? i am so honored, excited and exploding with i-can’t-fucking-wait energy, to participate in a mirror of the same incredible bill from last year’s HEAVY MTL: SLAYER – ROB ZOMBIE – MASTODON – ANVIL and more…… and what’s even more…. is that i, again, am the sole female front person of the day. representing the feminine love of all things HEAVY and the universal love of magic, myth, metal and mayhem. it’s beyond gender, it’s music. for those of you who missed it last year, please take a peek at MAdM TV Meets Heavy MTL – a half hour of interviews and backstage footage of Team MAdM exploring and loving the grounds of Heavy MTL. stay tuned for the next episode… post HEAVY TO…. this time, not only will i be the only WOMAN on the bill, but the only person capable and currently building life inside. METAL Meets THE MYSTERY OF MOTHERHOOD at HEAVY T.O………… more life coming soon!

What an honor and weird virtual reality being invited to be part of the virtual cast of Jean Paul Gaultier muses at the first ever Gaultier museum retrospective!

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts has put together a retrospective of his 30 + year career – displaying many outrageous original pieces from his Madonna “justify my love” corsets to his inspired-by-Hasidic Judaism line. The man has worked in themes and concepts all along, not just with clothes, as it was pointed out by Nathalie Bondil (the sexy museum director at the opening I attended last week), but he has also built a fantasy world where all people can co-exist with total tolerance of each others differences… freaks & princesses alike. An amazing artist who has shaped a lot of what pop culture is today (gaga!). It’s an honor to be cast as three of the virgin mermaids in the show, standing along side a virtual version of the man himself…

Here’s some info on the show, if you find yourself in Montreal, between now and October 2nd you must stop in!

the amazing DENVER music poster, art, rock silk screening team whipped up one spectacular show poster for the closing OOOM show in NYC this past MARCH…. this is a long overdue shout out and thanks to them and the talents up their cowboy art sleeves! it’s never too late to check out great poster art, so please go visit their FACEBOOK page for more tales of CAUSE.MEDIC.INK

xMx

p.s. the majority of the posters flew out the doors of the Highline Ballroom that night, but there are few left, that will eventually make themselves available for you in a yet to be planned MAdM OOOM memories yard sale in the future x

WELL, SINCE THE 1999 AND 2000 GIBSON BASS PLAYER OF THE YEAR AWARDS, I HAVE NOT WON ANY HONORS IN MUSIC. WINNING BEST ALTERNATIVE / HEAVY ROCK ALBUM FROM USA’S INDEPENDENT MUSIC AWARDS FOR MY LATEST ALBUM OUT OF OUR MINDS, IS THE GREATEST HONOR YET. I’VE WORKED HARDER ON THIS ALBUM THAN ANYTHING I’VE EVER DONE – REMEMBER THERE WAS A FILM, COMIC BOOK AND IT WAS INDEPENDENTLY RELEASED, PRODUCED, FINANCED… THOSE ARE THE REASONS FOR THE HARD WORK, NOT THE MUSIC ITSELF. THANK YOU TO THE HONORABLE JUDGES AND THE ORGANIZATION FOR RECOGNIZING OOOM AS A GOOD PIECE OF INDEPENDENT WORK.

THERE IS A PEOPLE’S POLL TO PARTICIPATE IN IF YOU LIKE – YOUR CHOICE OF WHO YOU LIKE BEST! VOX POP!

I AM AN INDEPENDENT MUSICIAN! 2010 marked my first totally independently created, produced and released project: OUT OF OUR MINDS: ALBUM – FILM – COMIC
i am happy to know there are organized, organizations, taking the time to recognize and support these efforts made by musicians. it’s the wave of the future i hear! a great wave, promising a tidal wave of experimental sounds coming out way this new decade! It’s the 10th year of the INDEPENDENT MUSIC AWARDS and OOOM has been nominated in the Alternative / Hard Rock category. THANK YOU to the IMAs for recognizing and nominating my album.
there is also a “listeners” poll, for you to vote for my album to win:

It’s an honor for me to be invited to be one of the two GUESTS OF HONOR at the 10th anniversary of Montreal’s Festival of the Americas. It is fantastic avant guard festival that celebrates diverse arts, from poetry, performance art and music. The director and artist in her own right D Kimm, invited me to create a show especially for this event at one of Montreal’s best theaters La Tulipe. please describe the show…..

“When I was thirteen, I stared into the night sky long enough to grasp the notion of infinity. Even since, I’ve been orbiting around the themes of time travel and duality. Contemplating, exploring the dual realities of earth and outer space, masculine and feminine, inner and outer worlds, heart and mind… My concert at La Tulipe, in honor of the Festival Voix d’Amériques 10th anniversary, is an extension of this exploration. An intimate show, created exclusively for this event, I will experiment with my current repertoire and play tribute to the influential work of others.”

read more about the FVA HERE! while i get back to work digging up songs of others and playing with my new bass micro synth pedal….

hope to see TEAM OOOM and new Montreal faces at the show x
for those of you in the New York area, don’t forget my NYC 3/3/11 show!
xMAdMx